y, though Oswald explained to
her that it was her own fault for having been born a girl. And, of
course, after the event, Dicky and I had some things to talk about that
the girls hadn't, and we had a couple of wet days.

You have no idea how dull you can be in a house like that, unless you
happen to know the sort of house I mean. A house that is meant for
plain living and high thinking, like Miss Sandal told us, may be very
nice for the high thinkers, but if you are not accustomed to thinking
high there is only the plain living left, and it is like boiled rice for
every meal to any young mind, however much beef and Yorkshire there may
be for the young insides. Mrs. Beale saw to our having plenty of nice
things to eat, but, alas! it is not always dinner-time, and in between
meals the cold rice-pudding feeling is very chilling. Of course we had
the splendid drawings of winged things made by our Flying Lodger, but
you cannot look at pictures all day long, however many coloured chalks
they are drawn with, and however fond you may be of them.

Miss Sandal's was the kind of house that makes you wander all round it
and say, "What shall we do next?" And when it rains the little ones get
cross.

It was the second wet day when we were wandering round the house to the
sad music of our boots on the clean, bare boards that Alice said--

"Mrs. Beale has got a book at her house called 'Napoleon's book of
Fate.' You might ask her to let you go and get it, Oswald. She likes you
best."

Oswald is as modest as any one I know, but the truth is the truth.

"We could tell our fortunes, and read the dark future," Alice went on.
"It would be better than high thinking without anything particular to
think about."

So Oswald went down to Mrs. Beale and said--

"I say, Bealie dear, you've got a book up at your place. I wish you'd
lend it to us to read."

"If it's the Holy Book you mean, sir," replied Mrs. Beale, going on with
peeling the potatoes that were to be a radiant vision later on, all
brown and crisp in company with a leg of mutton--"if it's the Holy Book
you want there's one up on Miss Sandal's chest of drawerses."

"I know," said Oswald. He knew every book in the house. The backs of
them were beautiful--leather and gold--but inside they were like whited
sepulchres, full of poetry and improving reading. "No--we didn't want
that book just now. It is a book called 'Napoleon's book of Fate.' Would
you mind if I ran up to your pla